This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

A little more than a year after Loblaw Companies Limited announced the purchase of Shoppers Drug Mart stores in a $12.4-billion deal, the pharmacy chain is testing sales of fresh produce, including meat, vegetables and fruit.

At one of the pilot Shoppers Drug Mart stores, on Dundas St. W., near Jane St. and Runnymede Rd., customers can buy a package of three boneless centre cut pork chops for $7, three beefsteak tomatoes for $4.49 or a 250-gram prepared shrimp Nicoise salad for $7.99.

Fresh sushi is delivered daily. The nigiri combo is $7.99 for a lunch-size serving.

“The biggest hurdle is having customers believe that they can get fresh food at a pharmacy,” said Mike Motz, executive vice-president and chief merchandising officer of Shoppers Drug Mart.

Article Continued Below

Six Toronto stores are gearing up for the official launch of the pilot on Sept. 20. The stores will carry produce that is in demand in their neighbourhoods.

Mike Motz, EVP and chief merchandising officer of Shoppers Drug Mart gives a tour of the new produce section at Shoppers Drug Mart near Dundas and Jane in Toronto of August 21, 2014.
Marta Iwanek/Toronto Star (Marta Iwanek / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Shoppers has been expanding the number and variety of foods it sells since introducing a limited number of food items in 2003 and expanding into more convenience foods in 2008.

“It took a while to build milk, eggs, butter. It took us a while to get to packaged meat, it took us a while to get to bacon,” said Motz.

He said their consumer research has shown that if the concept is going to work, the produce is going to have to be extremely fresh.

“I think they’re going to hold us to a higher standard than they would hold a conventional supermarket.

“We are going to learn a lot from the pilot.”

The move puts Shoppers, with 1,370 stores across Canada, into play in a field that has become intensely competitive, with Walmart stepping into the ring as a discount grocer and the arrival of Target, which also sells groceries.

But Shoppers isn’t competing on price – the groceries sell for what a shopper would pay at a conventional, not discount, store. Shoppers is competing on convenience, offering customers an easy shop in convenient locations, with large, well-lit parking lots. In Toronto, 200 Shoppers are open until midnight and 13 are open 24-hour stores.

“Our core customer is about 76-78 per cent female, they’re moms, they’re time-pressed, they’re looking for convenience, and a natural extension of convenience, from beauty and health and wellness, is food,” said Motz.

The idea of selling fresh produce at Shoppers make sense because it gets Loblaws products into smaller, urban locations, says Rob Gerlsbeck, editor of Canadian Grocer.

“There is this trend, this belief that the big stores are in decline. The big massive supercentres just aren’t drawing people like they used to. People want stores closer to where they live,” he said.

“I think of Shoppers Drug Mart as the new convenience store.”

The small urban shop is taking off in the United Kingdom, in Japan and in the U.S., where Walgreen’s has sushi chefs in some stores, said Gerlsbeck.

But it isn’t for everyone.

“Are you going to pay more for that? Some people are going to say no, they’ll go to Fresh Co., other people won’t even think twice.”

Jennifer Welsh, 29, and her fiancé, Andrew Miller, 30, say price is the deciding factor for them, especially since they are new parents.

“It’s not that I’m not interested,” said Welsh. “But I just find, yeah, it’s convenient, but it’s expensive.”

There is a Fresh Co. down the street from the Shoppers near them, and even though the difference is small on some items, it adds up, Welsh points out.

“It’s not a lot, but it’s enough.”

Motz said the fresh grocery concept is an evolution of the drug store concept. In 2003, Shoppers launched its first large-format store in Brampton, increasing the size from the average of 5,000-10,000 square feet to15,000 square feet. The new stores carried a small assortment of food. Later that year Shoppers piloted an enhanced beauty and cosmetics department, which has been a success, and in 2008 expanded into more convenience foods.

In July, Motz was named as the successor to Shoppers Drug Mart president Domenic Pilla, who is stepping down before the end of this year to lead a widely held public company.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com